Many of the Pilgrims who would end up at the Plymouth Plantation had resided in the city of Leiden (in The Netherlands) from 1609–1620, many of whom had recorded their birth, marriages and deaths at the Pieterskerk church. To commemorate this, a non-denominational Thanksgiving Day service is held each year on the morning of the American Thanksgiving Day in the Pieterskerk, a Gothic church in Leiden, to commemorate the hospitality the Pilgrims received in Leiden on their way to the New World.